AMY GOODMAN: Brian Deer, I want to move on to another issue. You wrote the book The Doctor Who Fooled the World. I want to go right now to another interaction in the Senate, another exchange. This is independent Senator Bernie Sanders questioning RFK Jr. Thursday alongside Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician and key Republican vote.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I find myself in the unusual and uncomfortable position of having to agree with Senator Cassidy’s line of questioning. Mr. Kennedy, in an interview in July 2023, you stated, quote, “I do believe autism does come from vaccines,” and you have — end of quote — and you have praised a gentleman named Andrew Wakefield for his research. Where — what studies — you talk about the need to be science-based, to get our information, good information, to make decisions. What studies have you utilized to come to the conclusion that vaccines cause autism?

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I’m happy to sit down with you.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: No, no. Please, just answer me now. You —

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I mean, look at the Mawson study, Senator.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: The what? Yeah, well, we —

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Mawson. Just look at that study.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yeah, I will. And that was published —

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: And I don’t — you know, I don’t want to — I wouldn’t rest on a single study.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: All studies can be —

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: OK. OK. Don’t mean to be rude. I don’t have a lot of time.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Just saying we — 

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: You would not be — I just heard you say you would not — could not be happier if you were proved wrong. Mr. Chairman, I ask to put into the record 16 studies done by scientists and doctors all over the world saying that vaccines do not cause autism.

AMY GOODMAN: So, in the last few minutes we have, Brian Deer — you wrote the book The Doctor Who Fooled the World. You were talking about Dr. Andrew Wakefield. If you can comment on what’s the connection between Robert Kennedy and Dr. Andrew Wakefield, known as the father of the anti-vaccine movement?

BRIAN DEER: Well, they basically run this movement together. Kennedy, Andrew Wakefield and another man, Del Bigtree, who works with them both, are, if you like, the innermost circle of this movement, which has evolved in recent years.

Andrew Wakefield is a research cheat. He was responsible for a fraudulent study published in London in 1998 that was referred to by another senator yesterday, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and she broke down as she was trying to explain that she has a developmentally challenged son and that she had blamed herself or had agonized over whether she should blame herself for having vaccinated her son and whether it was something she had done that caused his disability. And she was breaking down there even during the hearing as she was trying to get her words out. The suffering that parents have been exposed to as a result of this man Andrew Wakefield, in particular, and his research paper that she was referring to, and Bernie Sanders was referring to, published in London in 1998, and, I would say, was the honor of my life to have caused to be retracted and exposed for what it was.

AMY GOODMAN: Brian Deer, I want to thank you for being with us, investigative journalist, author of The Doctor Who Fooled the World. We’ll link to your New York Times op-ed, “I’ll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa’s Measles Outbreak.”

Next up, the confirmation hearings of Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel. Back in 20 seconds.